Posts about Purple Line

I've listed the downcounty races first, followed by the other districts.

District 16 (Glen Echo, Bethesda, Rockville Pike) has the western end of the Purple Line, significant bus ridership, a number of Metro stations and the county's most walkable downtown.

Senator Brian Frosh has been a leader on transportation issues, including circulating the letter supporting a transit alternative to widening I-270.

ACT is displeased with delegate Bill Frick's lack of absolute firmness on the Purple Line, and he specifically said he supports the 270 widening. However, he did sign the Purple Line Now pledge, and took the time to send a letter to the National Park Service after reading about a Rock Creek Park issue here on Greater Greater Washington. We feel he deserves another term.

Kyle Lierman and Scott Goldberg are among the many challengers vying for the one open seat or one of the incumbents'. Mr. Lierman's strength mostly comes from family political connections, but he wants to champion the Purple Line, get more funding to Metro, and raise the gas tax.

Mr. Goldberg, whom Cavan interviewed, also strongly supports the Purple Line, definitely understands induced demand, and wants the state to do better to minimize car-dependent sprawl. Either would make an excellent representative for the area.

District 18 (Chevy Chase, Kensington, Wheaton) contains the Town of Chevy Chase and Columbia Country Club, Ground Zero for the Purple Line battle. The political race for Delegate has not disappointed, boiling down largely to a referendum on the Purple Line.

Incumbent Anna Sol Gutierrez and challengers Vanessa Atterbeary and Dana Beyer are running in support of the light rail Purple Line along the alignment selected by the county and state. A strong vote for them, like for Berliner in Council District 2, would send a clear message that voters want to put this vital regional project ahead of local neighborhood obstruction.

Cavan discussed the Purple Line, Smart Growth in Wheaton, budget processes, and more with Ms. Gutierrez, Ms. Beyer and Ms. Atterbeary earlier this summer.

The other two incumbents are Al Carr and Jeff Waldstreicher. Mr. Carr has been a friend to the environment, cycling and transit with the exception of his Purple Line stance. He introduced bills for the bag fee and reforming "accident" language. While we hate to focus exclusively on single issues (and haven't in other races, like Mr. Frick in District 16), the Purple Line is the key place the state government will influence the future of this area in the immediate term, and having a supportive local delegation is important.

Senator Rich Madeleno has not been good on the Purple Line, but has been good on transit funding from the state in general, and is likely to be a key player in advocacy for transportation funding. He's also unopposed.

The controversy over the Purple Line in District 18 is nowhere to be found in District 20 (Silver Spring, Takoma Park, White Oak), where the sitting delegation absolutely supports the Purple Line and is otherwise terrific on practically every single issue.

Senator Jamie Raskin and Delegates Sheila Hixson, Tom Hucker and Heather Mizeur deserve a speedy return to Annapolis. Among many other things, Mr. Raskin was the Senate introducer of the bag fee and Ms. Hixson organized the I-270 transit alternative letter.

District 14 (Burtonsville, Brookeville, Damascus) is one of the more rural districts in the county, with no Metro stations. However, the Intercounty Connector will run through the district's southeastern portion.

Delegate Karen Montgomery deserves to win in her challenge against incumbent Senator Rona Kramer. Ms. Kramer supported the ICC, while Ms. Montgomery opposed it. Ms. Kramer's family includes developers who build sprawling strip malls, and on policy her actions align with theirs. Outside of GGW issues, Ms. Kramer has also taken some very unusual stands for her party, like opposing a progressive income tax.

For Delegate, we support incumbent Anne Kaiser and open-seat candidates Eric Luedke and Craig Zucker. Luedke is even a blogger, having written periodically for Maryland Politics Watch.

District 15 (Poolesville, Barnesville, Clarksburg) is the other rural district. There are no Metro stations and a relatively low proportion of transit use, though MARC's Brunswick line has many stations in this district.

Senator Rob Garagiola and Delegates Kathleen Dumais and Brian Feldman have been reliable supporters of transit funding including Metro and MARC, though in many cases also road construction as well. Mr. Garagiola authored the bill creating a commission to find a new source of transportation funding which Maryland desperately needs.

Aruna Miller and Lara Wibeto are the leading candidates for the third open seat. Ms. Miller is a transportation engineer for Montgomery County DOT, and some who've tangled with them on road design issues have some complaints about working with her. Otherwise, there does not seem to be a strong difference in their answers on the ACT questionnaire.

District 17 (Garrett Park, Rockville, Gaithersburg) has a high-profile contest between incumbent Senator Jennie Forehand and challenger Cheryl Kagan. Advocates on most issues, including on transit and smart growth, have been hard pressed to find any substantive difference between the two. Forehand spoke up strongly for highway widening during the 270 battle, but Kagan isn't really any better.

The delegate seats are all uncontested. James Gilchrist deserves special kudos for periodically taking the bus from Rockville to Annapolis to attend legislative sessions. Kumar Barve was one of two delegates not to sign the "Fair Share for Metro" letter, and signed the pro-highway 270 letter but not the pro-transit alternative.

District 19 (Glenmont, Aspen Hill, some of Olney) is a fairly static part of the County's middle, almost entirely built out with single family suburban homes (including my in-laws') and not changing very much very quickly for better or worse, except for the ICC running through the middle.

Delegate Roger Manno is trying to take the Senate seat from Mike Lennett. On transportation, both have been good, but Mr. Manno does more legwork to make things happen. Advocates say when they visit Annapolis, Lennett might be on their side, but Mr. Manno greets them and asks how he can help. Mr. Manno was the one to circulate the Metro funding letter on the floor. On that basis, Mr. Manno deserves a vote.

Among the delegates, incumbent Ben Kramer is similar to his sister Rona Kramer, including being very pro-road. Advoactes who've talked with the various candidates had good impressions of Sam Arora and Jay Hutchins on style and substance. Mr. Hutchins had excellent answers on the ACT questionnaire, and we like Mr. Arora's issues page. Disclosure: Mr. Arora and I have mutual friends.

District 39 (Montgomery Village, North Potomac, Darnestown) is the suburban area around the City of Gaithersburg, shaped as it is because state law requires district boundaries to respect incorporated city boundaries. It includes the Great Seneca Science Corridor (formerly Gaithersburg West), but the state legislature had little involvement with this issue. If built, the Corridor Cities Transitway will travel through a significant part of this district's western half.

Saqib Ali is trying to unseat incumbent Seantor Nancy King. Most of the differences are stylistic, especially Mr. Ali's much younger age and perceived greater vigor. But advocates who work with the legislature also say Mr. Ali does more grandstanding than actual legislating, and his bills don't advance because he doesn't work them hard enough. His vigor could be more Twitter-based than actual achievement-oriented.

However, Mr. Ali was willing to take a clear stand against widening I-270. He actually publicly renounced the pro-widening letter he himself signed, saying he hadn't seen the 270 part, which was below the pro-Corridor Cities Transitway section of the letter. Maybe it would have been better if he'd read the letter first, but we applaud this action.

Incumbents Charles Barkley and Kirill Reznik have reliably supported transit issues including Metro funding, the Purple Line, and the CCT, including transit alternatives over widening I-270. They deserve reelection. The most viable candidates vying to succeed Mr. Ali are Shane Robinson and Bob Hydorn, whose positions on these issues differ little.

Marc Elrich has been a strong proponent of a Bus Rapid Transit network, pushing the idea tirelessly and making it a signature issue. However, he's also the strongest defender of traffic-based tests that in effect hinder walkable development.

Nancy Floreen pushed through the White Flint plan, one of Montgomery's biggest opportunities for meaningful transit-oriented development, and opposes the traffic-based tests that Elrich likes. On the other hand, she also opposes most rules that would limit development in rural areas far from transit. She generally advocates building in the county and is less discerning about what or where.

George Leventhal has been a leader in the fight for the Purple Line, and for transit in general in the county. Yet he also strongly supported widening I-270, and basically favors any transportation project of any kind in any location. Duchy Trachtenberg has been good on the environment and transit issues as well and not a road booster, but hasn't shown as much leadership on growth and transportation issues generally.

I'd recommend Montgomery residents (like my in-laws) vote for Mr. Riemer and decide among the other candidates based on the other issues, like schools, budgets, labor relations and many more. If you're not sure of some of the candidates, it's also fine to vote for only two or three. Leaving a blank or two on the ballot makes the votes you do cast count even more, as the top four total vote-getters win the seats.

Two district seats are also contested, which happen to be the two that had Montgomery's greatest development debates in the last few years. District 1 includes Chevy Chase, Bethesda and Potomac, and has significant numbers of residents who oppose the Purple Line and/or White Flint. Roger Berliner, the incumbent, has championed both projects a good future for his area despite the short-term political risk. Meanwhile, his challenger, Ilaya Hopkins, has chosen to throw her lot in with the antis. Mr. Berliner should be reelected to prove that anti sentiment doesn't drive Montgomery politics.

In District 2, the suburban and rural northern part of the County, former Planning Board Chair Royce Hanson is the best choice for the open seat. He's been a strong proponent of Smart Growth on the Planning Board, and was largely responsible for the Agricultural Reserve, the large belt of (mostly) protected land at the County's edge, much of which is in that district. His support for the sprawl development at Gaithersburg West was more of a disappointment, but his multi-decade track record warrants your vote.

The other district members, Phil Andrews, Nancy Navarro, and Valerie Ervin, do not have primary challengers.

Education
Delegate Sol Gutierrez emphasized that she has a constructive working relationship with the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) that dates back to her time serving on the Board of Education in the early 1990's. Ana and her three sons all received a quality public education in Montgomery County. She first ran for the school board because she saw that the county was experiencing demographic changes.

When she returned to the county in the early 1980's after living five years in South America, she was dismayed because it appeared that two different school systems were emerging, based on changing demographics. She looked at the available data and noticed that an achievement gap was developing in parts of the county. When the MCEA was informed of the data, they began collaborating together to implement an educational vision.

Ana recalled that the disposition of the Board of Education during her first term and her second term were very different. The Board during her second term "was very anti-union." Ana worked to focus the anti-union sentiments on improving the processes related to teacher development and evaluation. She said, "If we wanted to improve education, we had to work with the teachers.

The MCEA was a good partner, very collaborative and very progressive." They designed a process where teachers would be given ongoing support and training. If a teacher was judged to need performance improvement, they would be given professional development along with a defined timeline for improvement and standardized expectations. While working with the MCEA, she noted "in many ways, they were more forward thinking than the board."

Delegate Sol Gutierrez's education accomplishments at the state level have included the passage of legislation that more accurately defines the graduation rate, years before the federal government did. Her future education initiatives include extending the mandatory attendance age as a means to reduce the drop-out rates among minority students. Such an extension would include provisions for a system of interventions and enrichment classes to support the higher attendance age. She also favors legislation that would track, report, and intervene with primary school students with low attendance. Poor attendance in elementary school is often a precursor of low academic achievement and with dropping out in high school.

Economy
Because Delegate Sol Gutierrez serves on the House Appropriations Committee, she is acutely aware of the critical economic circumstances that the state and country are currently in. One of the country's ongoing economic problems that is holding back recovery is that banks are refusing to lend to small businesses. The large national banks (the Too-Big-to-Fails) all have large non-performing loans on their balance sheets. Therefore, they are reluctant to lend to any commercial entities except the biggest of big business. However, a few small banks took the kind of risks that the Too-Big-to-Fails took. They simply aren't big enough to cover the gap that the anemic national banks left. Ana sees potential for Maryland to create a special fund to incentivize the solvent, more agile, in-state community banks to increase small business lending.

Because of the ongoing Great Recession, Ana is also pushing for major revisions to established economic projection methodologies. I agree completely. Many economic systems behave differently when an economy is in a liquidity trap. Under normal economic circumstances, if the Federal Reserve maintained (effectively) zero percent interest rates for two years, we would experience very high inflation. The fact that this hasn't happened further bolsters the need to revise inflation and budgetary projection methodologies to incorporate current conditions, along with irregular business growth and investment behaviors.

Purple Line
When I asked Ana how she came to be a champion of the Purple Line, she replied, "The Purple Line embodies what I understand to be social justice." Just like the Metro, it will provide quality transit for all, regardless of socio-economic status. "I understand what it's like for a single parent to have to get up at 5am to catch a bus, then catch another bus to get to work on time… while a child has to wait for a school bus alone." She continued, "We have a two-tiered transportation system right now. The Purple Line will be a major step in creating a high-quality transportation system for all."

Ana also recognizes that the Purple Line will be among the most efficient and competitive light rail project in the United States. When it comes to cost-per-rider metrics, the project scores very well, mainly due to high expected ridership.

She also emphasizes the environmental benefits of smart growth, such as focusing new growth around transit stations inside the beltway rather than bulldozing thousands of acres of old growth forest to create new car-dependent exurban subdivisions.

Chris talked about the voluntary public campaign finance legislation that continues to be considered in the General Assembly. A compromise was struck last year which would significantly increase the contribution limits for those who decide to stay in the private funding system. He said that in some respects this compromise would actually make the situation worse since it would allow those who stay in the private system to raise even larger sums of money from lobbyists and political action committees. This compromise would ensure continued special interest control over the legislative process since most if not all of the representatives who control the legislative process would stay in the private system. Chris called the compromise a "cynical bone thrown to first-time candidates."

I pointed out that many challenging candidates employ a strategy of painting themselves as an outsider in a campaign against "the establishment." "How would you keep from falling into the mindset of 'the establishment' that you care currently criticizing?" I asked. Chris pointed out that he has capped his contribution limit at $500. He also emphasized that he is not accepting donations from businesses, political action committees, and Maryland registered lobbyists. Chris said that this will enable him to maintain his independence and passion for innovation in the General Assembly.

District 20 has been a long-time axis for Purple Line support, both among its elected officials and among its voters. Chris emphasized he would be a champion for the Purple Line as an essential part of his smart growth platform. He expressed, "We need to reorient how we think about transportation and planning. We need an efficient [intra-regional] train that is more convenient than driving and also provides economic incentives to use transit." From the conversation, I inferred that Chris understands that planning and transportation go hand-in-hand. If you don't have human-scale walkable urban places to connect, transit can't be more efficient and convenient than a private automobile.

As part of his platform of bolstering a clean energy economy, Chris feels that an important first step would be to put more emphasis on the existing Maryland Clean Energy Center. Ironically, it is currently in car-dependent western Rockville, miles from the Red Line. It was put there because the office space was donated.

He asserted that Maryland has fallen behind the rest of the nation mainly as a result of the Maryland General Assembly not making this issue a priority. We're ahead on smart growth (which says as much about other states cluelessness on the matter as it does about Maryland's success) but behind on placing an emphasis on clean energy. Maryland is fortunate to have a very wide and deep human capital talent pool. We could leverage our proximity to the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a clean energy economy similar as we have leveraged our proximity to the National Institutes of Health to create a robust biotech industry.

Most importantly, we already have a political consensus that creating a clean energy economy is the right direction to take. The creation of the Maryland Clean Energy Center is a physical manifestation of that consensus. Now the center needs significantly more resources to drive Maryland forward in this emerging industry.

2) On your website, you articulate your detailed views about the role of taxation in our society. You also emphasize the need for the Maryland House of Delegates to be proactive rather than sitting back and waiting for the Governor to submit his/her budget. What taxation and budget policies do you envision proposing as a Delegate representing the 18th District?

Taxes are the price we pay for our civilization. No one has accumulated wealth simply on the basis of his or her own exertions outside of the greater community. We all benefit from and depend on our public works, such as schools, hospitals, parks, libraries, and law enforcement officials.

As a founder and leader of the Progressive Working Group, Maryland's newer progressive coalition, I have lobbied to develop and maintain progressive tax policies. Unfortunately, this year, the Maryland General Assembly allowed the millionaire's tax bracket to sunset. None of the District 18 delegates co-sponsored Delegate Ivey's bill to stop the sunset.

In addition, large multi-state corporations are still allowed to avoid Maryland taxes. A process known as combined reporting would disallow this practice and bring in hundreds of millions of dollars annually. 23 states already prevent such tax avoidance. The current District 18 delegates are led on this matter by Senator Madaleno, who strongly opposes combined reporting, as well as progressive taxation in general.

I believe that neither progressive taxation nor combined reporting will drive millionaires or corporations to ferry across the Potomac to live in Fairfax County, a common mantra from many conservative-leaning Democrats in Montgomery County.

The basic fact is that the County has reached the limit of its taxing ability and is now resorting to nuisance taxes such as the 80% increase in the energy tax and the new cell phone taxes, as well as the ambulance fee. The only way to pay for the services we prize here in the County is through adequate, progressive, equitable and sustainable taxation from Annapolis.

Any other taxes should be progressive and not target the middle class, unless they serve an overriding purpose which benefits the middle class as well as everyone else.

3) Recently, the Washington Post took note that Maryland's smart growth laws have been "toothless." As you are aware, downtown Wheaton has been designated as a "Smart Growth Area" by the state of Maryland. As a delegate, what steps would you take to advance progress in Wheaton?

I will work closely with the Montgomery County Council and Parks and Planning to move our smart growth projects forward, the most recent being White Flint and the Great Seneca Science Center. Currently, communication between the Council and the state delegation is very poor. As a Council staffer who knows the elected Councilmembers as well as their staffs and the permanent staff, I will be uniquely suited to serve as a bridge between the two bodies.

If we [Montgomery County] are ever to be taken seriously as the economic power in Maryland, we need to present an assertive united front. Our County does produce 24% of the state's GDP with only 17% of its population.

The Wheaton sector plan is currently under discussion and should appear before the Council next year. We've recognized that Wheaton will not become like Bethesda or Silver Spring, but be more of a residential center. I support that form of development.

While I do not see the importation of Costco as a smart growth move, as few would shop at Costco via Metro, a solid majority of the neighboring residents seem to desire Costco and I support the County Exec's plan. However, I oppose the fast-track creation of a 16 bay gas station on public health grounds. It should be called what it really is — a truck stop.

I also intend to introduce legislation that will mandate equipping all gas station pumps with advanced vapor recovery nozzles to minimize ground level ozone. Wheaton already has 14 gas stations, and we need to reduce this major factor in smog production and pulmonary disease.

Disclosure: I reside in District 18.